What a night. What a fight. You can read a full report here.
Tyson Fury wins by unanimous decision over Otto Wallin!
Fury wins a unanimous decision by scores of 116-112, 117-111 and 118-110. High drama on a wild night in Las Vegas but the outcome everyone expected in the end.
Round 12
Wallin lands a big left hand early in the round. And he’s hurt Fury! Fury is hurt against the run of play and he’s holding on! Wallin landing punches and taking his shot. The cut is bleeding badly again, streaming blood down the right side of his face. Fury is backing up, pawing at the wound. Wallin is letting his hands go. Another short hook by Wallin! He’s timing Fury for another big left ... can he land it? And there’s the final bell! What a fight! It should be a clear decision for Fury, but let’s hang around for the official scores just in case.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 9-10 Wallin (Fury 116-112 Wallin)
Round 11
Fury is picking away at his opponent from bell to bell in total command of the action. Then at the end of the round Fury lands a massive left hand to the body that badly hurts Wallin. He’s saved by the bell.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 10-9 Wallin (Fury 107-102 Wallin)
Round 10
Fury races from the corner and opens up with a furious combination of a dozen punches upstairs. Wallin tries to hold on but Fury leans down on him. Fury going for the knockout! Wallin looks like he’s ready to go! His face is swollen and a trickle of blood is coming from his nose. Fury lands a punishing left to the liver with Wallin up against the ropes. Can Wallin make it out of the round? Wallin is trapped in the corner and is completely exhausted. Fury is teeing off. Wallin fighting back in spots but this is one-way traffic.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 10-9 Wallin (Fury 97-93 Wallin)
Updated
Round 9
Wallin has all but abandoned the body attack that was working so well for him early on. Fury lands a big right, then backs Wallin up with a body shot. The cut over Fury’s right eye has opened up and is gushing blood, but Wallin’s punches have nothing on then. If feels like a race against time. Fury lands a hard uppercut in the center of the ring and backs his man up. Then Fury hurts Wallin badly with a left uppercut with seconds left in the round and the Swede seems to have been saved by the bell.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 10-9 Wallin (Fury 87-84 Wallin)
Round 8
Fury’s pressure is changing the tenor of the proceedings. He lands two crunching shots to the body. A great uppercut by Fury. Now Fury continues to impose himself, leaning down on Wallin against the ropes. He’s bleeding badly but he’s landing more frequently and with the harder shots. This is another easy round for Fury, who is pouring on the punishment. CompuBox says Fury landed 23 of 63 shots, compared to nine of 28 for Wallin.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 10-9 Wallin (Fury 77-75 Wallin)
Updated
Round 7
Fury springs from the corner with half a jar of Vaseline on his right eye looking for a knockout early in the seventh. A renewed sense of urgency for the bigger man. He’s throwing and landing more and physically imposing himself on his opponent. Wallin is taking Fury’s best shots but it’s midway through the round and he looks gassed. The Swede’s eye is also beginning to swell. A big Fury round.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 10-9 Wallin (Fury 67-66 Wallin)
Round 6
It’s a good round for Wallin and Fury looks out of sorts. Referee Tony Weeks stops the action and asks the ringside physician to take a look at the cut. Oh boy. This could be it. Fury insists he can see and the fight will continue. Fury then springs off the ropes and unloads with a barrage of punches upstairs. Fury is now fighting with urgency but that cut is getting worse and worse. And right at the end of the round Wallin appeared to thumb at the cut when being separated off the break! Oh wow! He raked his glove across the gash. It’s a deliberate foul and Fury looks both angry and surprised. That was filthy.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 9-10 Wallin (Fury 57-57 Wallin)
Round 5
Looks like there’s another cut on Fury’s eye: one on the brow and another on the eyelid. Wallin is fearless and in pursuit of Fury, but Fury is doing just enough to win the exchanges. He lands a couple of good uppercuts and it’s enough to take the round on my card. CompuBox says Wallin is connecting with an average of 10 punches per round, nearly double what Fury’s last nine opponents managed to land.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 10-9 Wallin (Fury 48-47 Wallin)
Round 4
Fury is bleeding badly. The blood is getting in his eye and he keeps wiping at it. Wallin is targeting the gash. Fury is upset, chirping at his opponent. Wallin showing no fear. High drama. Fury doesn’t seem right and there could be a surprise in the offing. Fury has landed 39 of 160 punches so far, compared to 42 of 110 for Wallin. Fury’s corner seem to think the cut was due to a clash of heads earlier in the rounds. Oh boy.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 9-10 Wallin (Fury 38-38 Wallin)
Round 3
Fury is using feints to try and set traps and create openings. He lands a hard right. Fury now landing a couple of hard shots upstairs. And Wallin lands a clean left hand on Fury’s right eye that opens up a cut. And it’s a bad one. After the round it’s confirmed the Nevada state commission has seen it that way, too. That means if the fight is stopped due to the cut, Wallin will be declared the winner by TKO. High drama!
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 10-9 Wallin (Fury 29-28 Wallin)
Round 2
A crisp combination of body shots by Wallin early in the second round. Fury answers with a right hand and switches to a southpaw stance like he’s done in his recent fights. Wallin traps Wallin in a neutral corner and throws a bunch of shots to the body, some of which land cleanly. But Fury springs off the ropes and buzzes Wallin with a right hand. Another right hand to Wallin’s temple at the end of the round. Fury is starting to find his range and tempo and he’s getting the right hand going.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 10-9 Wallin (Fury 19-19 Wallin)
Round 1
Fury starts off boxing from the outside off the back foot as Wallin moves forward, trying to negotiate his way inside that rangy 85in jab. Fury is working the jab to the head and body. Wallin burrows inside and connect with a left hand to the body that draws a reaction from the crowd. Wallin is stuggling to get inside but he’s cutting distance and getting the bigger man to the ropes. Quite an uneventful opening round but Wallin takes it.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Fury 9-10 Wallin (Fury 9-10 Wallin)
Here we go. After performances of the national anthems of Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, it’s time for the fighter entrances. First comes Otto Wallin, who jogs to the ring in a sleeveless black robe with gold and blue trim. Now it’s Tyson Fury, wearing a poncho-style robe designed like the flag of Mexico and a large sombrero in keeping with his week-long celebration of Mexican Independence Day. Gala’s Freed from Desire is playing throughout the T-Mobile Arena as Fury makes his way toward the arena floor, emerging from the tunnel onto a red, white and green chariot of sorts as a mariachi band plays alongside dancers and a singer belting out El Rey by Vicente Fernández. Oh boy. Jimmy Lennon Jr is going through the fighter introductions and we should be under way any minute now. We’ll pick it up with round-by-round commentary from here.
Emanuel Navarrete has just defended his WBO junior featherweight title with a fourth-round TKO of Juan Miguel Elorde in the final preliminary bout. The Mexico City fighter, making his second title defense in four weeks and third since May, dropped the grandson of Filipino legend Flash Elorde with one second left in the third before referee Russell Mora correctly intervened at the 0:26 mark of the fourth.
That means Fury and Wallin should be making their ringwalks imminently.
Tale of the tape
Here’s a look at how Fury and Wallin match up ahead of tonight’s main event. The Swede is roughly a 10-1 underdog in the contest, a nod to Fury’s superior class of competition as much as his reach and height advantages.
Jose Zepeda has just won a unanimous decision over former two-division champion Jose Pedraza to spoil Pedraza’s junior welterweight debut. All three judges scored it 97-93 for the California southpaw, as did the Guardian. The final undercard fight of the evening is next as WBO junior featherweight world champion Emanuel Navarrete defends his title against Juan Miguel Elorde. After that, Fury and Wallin will make their entrances.
Preamble
Good evening and welcome to tonight’s heavyweight showdown between Tyson Fury and Otto Wallin at T-Mobile Arena. The Gypsy King is back in action on the Las Vegas strip for the second time in four months following a June blowout of no-hoper Tom Schwarz at the MGM Grand in the first fight of his newly signed co-promotional deal with Top Rank. The unheralded Wallin, who is unbeaten in 21 professional fights against mostly unknown opposition, isn’t expected to put up much more in the way of resistance. But everyone’s a dreamer after Andy Ruiz Jr’s shock upset of Anthony Joshua earlier this year and the stout Swede would like nothing more than to stir up the echoes of Ingemar Johansson and spoil Fury’s plans of a rematch with Deontay Wilder that’s already been penciled in for early next year.
Fury (28-0-1, 20 KOs) ended Wladimir Klitschko’s decade-long title reign with a dull but effective display in Germany four years ago, only to surrender all the belts during a 31-month layoff where he underwent a public bout with mental illness and ballooned from 260lbs to nearly 400lbs. These days the official titles at heavyweight belong to Wilder, who’s owned the WBC’s version of the championship since 2015, and Ruiz Jr, who captured the WBA, WBO and IBF straps from Joshua. Yet one could argue Fury’s claim to the mantle of world’s best heavyweight is purest as the lineal champion: the so-called man who beat the man who beat the man.
Tonight marks Fury’s fifth “defense” of that nominal title he won from Klitschko and he’s down to his lightest weight since that night in Düsseldorf, coming in at 254.4lbs at yesterday’s weigh-in. That’s down from 263.5lbs against Schwarz in June, 256.5lbs against Wilder in December, 258lbs against Francisco Pianeta last August and 276lbs against Sefer Seferi in June 2018 in his comeback fight.
Wallin (20-0 with 1 NC, 13 KOs) has had a quite an up-and-down time of it during his brief time in America. Showtime was trying to build him up earlier in the year as a potential opponent for Wilder, slating him in the co-feature of the Claressa Shields-Christina Hammer card in Atlantic City, but he was forced to settle for a no-contest in his US debut after opponent Nick Kisner suffered a cut from an accidental clash of heads in the first round of their scheduled 10-rounder. Then a July date with gatekeeper BJ Flores was scuttled on the day of the fight when it was revealed Flores was denied a license after medical tests. But what appeared to be a hard-luck year for Wallin turned around in a hurry when he was given a shot at Fury. Whether the opportunity has come too soon for the Swedish prospect, who’s never been in with an opponent of Fury’s class, remains to be seen.
The fighters should make their ringwalks about an hour from now. Plenty more to come between now and then.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime let’s check in with Tyson Fury ahead of tonight’s heavyweight scrap.
